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Listen, Bruce had said. Your brother is sick again, so don’t take anything he says to heart, okay?
“I know what you are,” Dick whispers to him on the back porch, the one just outside the kitchen door that slams too loudly, and which overlooks the garden. After a long summer, the garden has dried and withered, not that you could tell in the dark. You’d have to have seen it in the daytime, everyday, every year, to know that the roses are browning and the tomatoes are growing too ripe, dropping themselves off from the vine and rotting on the ground. As it is, fireflies lift off into the night, and crickets chirp from the bushes. A block of kitchen light is the only source of light they have, and through the screen door, Jason can see the rest of their family bustling back and forth in the kitchen. Jason takes a swig from his drink: carbonated lemonade. There’s no alcohol in the house when Dick is ill.
“And what would that be?” Jason asks. He’s never really dealt with Dick during one of his longer episodes, though he’s been told not to deny his hallucinations, nor confirm them either. He’s not sure how that’s supposed to be done. Only Tim, allegedly, has seen a full fledged episode, and all he had to say on the subject was that it was ‘intense.’ Tim is not the family poet.
“I know that you are lying to me,” Dick continues. “And you are lying to everyone.”
Jason would very much like to abort this conversation, but Dick had followed him out here, and Jason doesn’t think it’s a very good idea to go back inside and leave Dick out here alone.
“Maybe we should go back inside,” Jason says. Yes. Redirection. Dick’s eyes narrow.
“So what? So you can play happy family? So you can pretend to be his son?”
Jason doesn’t know what he was expecting Dick to say, but it wasn’t this. He can’t help but flinch, and Dick notices his flinch, as he always does. Usually Dick would back off, or maybe even apologize. Today, he leans forward.
“You think you can trick them, and maybe you have, but I can tell. I might not have been great, and he says he fucking hates me, and I can’t even see his face, but I can still fucking tell. You are not my fucking brother, and you never will be.”
Jason is swiping at Dick before he even notices. Dick’s head smacks against the screen door, and suddenly, all noise from the kitchen stops. Jason can feel eyes on him. Dick presses a hand against his head. His fingers come away slick.
Bruce opens the door. He looks at Dick, then his eyes meet Jason’s.
“What happened?”
Jason doesn’t even know what to say. Don’t take anything he says to heart, Bruce had said, and Jason doesn’t think he did. Half of what Dick said didn’t even make sense anyway. The last part, though. Jason’s reaction had been reflex. Jason doesn’t think Bruce will accept that excuse.
“He hit me,” Dick says, looking up at Bruce. “He fucking hit me. He’s dangerous, like I said. I told you to take a hair sample. When will you fucking listen to me?”
Dick is crying now, all frustrated hot tears that he wipes angrily with his wrist. Jason’s eyes flicker to the kitchen, and he sees Tim and Duke just staring, Alfred hovering protectively behind them. Cass and Damian seem to have disappeared.
“I am listening to you, Chum,” Bruce says, pulling Dick into his arms, and Dick lets him. He sobs into Bruce’s shoulder like a kid, and Jason can’t help feeling mortified at the rawness of it all. Bruce looks at Jason, then pointedly toward the kitchen. Jason doesn’t want to go back inside. Doesn’t want to explain anything. But he steps inside, back into the orange light, because that is all he can really do, leaving Dick’s sobs behind him.
One of the strangest things about your best friend being your brother’s ex best friend is that said best friend will know things Jason’s never once mentioned.
“Oh yeah,” Roy grimaces, shoving toast into his mouth. After a rough night, Roy’s treating him to brunch. “I mean, I’ve only seen it once, really, but it was kinda freaky. He kept talking about the shadow box, whatever the fuck that means. Said it was watching him and that we should be prepared.”
That episode had been brief and largely benign, although Jason had to suffer a few lectures about the shadow box and all that it entails.
“It’s, like, a kind of demon,” Jason tries to explain. It’s quite hard, explaining something that was poorly explained to him in the first place. “Like, a demonic monolith, I think? It’s not animate, but it’s still possessed?”
It’s Roy’s turn to furrow his brow, and Jason wonders if it’s ever weird for Roy that his best friend is his ex-best friend’s estranged dead brother person.
“Don’t you guys have, like, a protocol for this? I mean, you’ve got to, right? Where is he now, anyways?”
Supervised is what Bruce would call it. Imprisoned is the word Dick used.
“He’s staying with B-man,” Jason says.
“Tough luck,” Roy says.
Since that little kerfuffle after dinner last week, Jason’s stayed away from the manor. Tim and Duke have too, it seems, with Tim moving all his work stuff to the penthouse and taking one of Bruce’s cars so he can drive Duke to school every morning. Cass is still at the manor. Damian too, though Jason really doesn’t think he should be. Jason at least has familiarity with Dick’s schizophrenia. This is Damian’s first rodeo.
“It runs in the family, doesn’t it?” Roy asks. Jason frowns. Roy quickly corrects. “Like, his other family.”
It does, though, again, Jason didn’t think Roy would know that. Apparently Dick’s uncle, the one who also died, also had it, and the illness ran quite strongly on the paternal side. Of course, this was all according to an eight year old with non-existent medical records, so who’s to say.
“Kinda scary, isn’t it?” Roy says. “All that hereditary stuff. You can't stop it.”
After brunch, Jason takes the train to midtown, where he’s been working at the local library. The train ride is long, and Jason pulls out Anna Karenina and stuffs in his earbuds, trying to tune out the rest of the world. There’s a tired looking woman in a cook’s uniform across from him. A teenager wearing expensive shoes who should probably be in school next to him. Buildings rush past outside, and Jason catches glimpses of lawsuit billboards and balconies overflowing with kids toys. There is so much life in the world, life Jason usually appreciates, but today, he feels like he’s drowning in it.
Happy families are all alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Jason himself doesn’t know too much about his family history, other than the fact that his father’s side had some heart disease, some undefined anger issues, and alcoholism, and Catherine—well. Catherine wasn’t related to him, biologically. In regards to his biological mother, Jason has always been too scared to look up anything about her. He doesn’t want to think about her. Can't think about her without putting a stop to his day.
But what he does know is that his father died young. He’d only been in his thirties. His mother—mothers—both died young too. Jason’s not special. He remembers seeing families dropping like flies in crime alley. The kids with parents who went early tended to die early too. And just when Jason looks up and into the Gotham sky and thinks, hey, I escaped that, ‘that’ being the addiction, the depression, the anger, the dying, he’ll remember that he didn’t. He died young too.
When he first got to the manor, he thought maybe that was something he and Dick could bond over. Dick had been even younger than Jason when his parents died. Jason thought maybe Dick could understand. The call of the void. The sense of inevitability. Did Dick ever feel, while jumping across rooftops, that brief blip of knowing, deep in his gut, that one day he would plummet down and die just like his parents?
Jason never did get the courage to ask Dick such a question, although, watching Dick leap across rooftops, he thought he got his answer, which was no. No, somehow Dick never felt that clutch of inevitability. Maybe that was the difference between them. The reason why Dick lived and Jason died.
The train stops in midtown. Jason gets off. He weaves through the throngs of midday traffic before reaching the library. Inside, the sweet older lady behind the front desk greets him, and Jason smiles, sliding his card to clock in. It was lovely, seeing his name pop up on that small digital screen. It made him seem so normal, so real.
Jason gets a call at two AM telling him they’re looking for Dick.
“What do you mean you’re looking for him?” Jason asks. Of course he gets woken up the one night he’s taking off. Of course.
“Bruce doesn't know where he is. He can’t find him. He was having a good day, so B let him take Cass and Damian shopping, but they somehow lost sight of him, and he’s just gone.”
It’s two AM. Shops aren’t open at two AM.
“This happened hours ago?” Jason asked. “And you’re just now calling me?”
“I figured you didn't want to be bothered,” Tim says, sounding annoyed. “But B’s been out in costume for an hour already, and he still can’t find him, and he’s not at his apartment. I thought maybe I’d ask you, since he’s been—you know.”
Fixated is the word. Jason doesn’t really know what to make of it. Sure, they work together, sure they see each other at the occasional dinner, and sure, they’re even hanging out now and then these days, but Jason so rarely holds Dick’s entire attention for more than a few seconds that his recent fixation has been alarming.
“What’s the deal with that, anyway?” Jason asks, even though he knows she shouldn’t. He puts Tim on speaker and starts putting on pants.
“I don’t know,” Tim says. “I mean—I don’t think it’s the first time?”
Jason pauses.
“What do you mean?”
Tim blows out a puff of air, which crackles across the phone.
“I mean he’s mentioned you in the past. When he’s having an episode. Not, like, a lot, but sometimes. Nothing specific. Just—rambling.”
Jason puts on the rest of his clothes.
“Look, I don’t need you to go looking for him or anything,” Tim says, even though he must know Jason is getting dressed. “I just wanted to call in case he, like, broke into your apartment or something.”
Jason highly doubts Dick even remembers where his apartment is. They both know the real danger, which is that Dick might be out there confronting strangers or running naked along the freeway.
“Remember,” Tim says, “he’s not in his right mind. Don’t take it to heart.”
Jason hates when Tim is patronizing. He hangs up without giving a warning.
On the rooftops, Jason grapples through crime alley, then out into the nearby neighborhoods. There’s no sight of Dick anywhere, not that he thought he would find him. Gotham is a big city, and Dick is a slippery guy. The odds of coming across him are practically nill, but it’s not like Jason can just go back to bed and sleep.
He doesn’t come across him. But behind a large, glowing billboard advertising a new flavor of energy drink, Jason does get a phone call. It’s from Dick. He answers.
“... Jason?”
He sounds quiet, but ragged, like he’s been running, or crying, or screaming. He can hear the blocky sounds of wind, which must mean he’s outside.
“Yeah, man,” Jason says cautiously. He needs to know where Dick is, but he’d really prefer not to have a repeat of their last conversation. “Where are you?”
“Fuck,” Dick says, ignoring Jason’s question entirely. “God. I thought you wouldn’t answer.”
Don’t take anything to heart. Jason feels a little bad.
“Where are you?” he asks again. He looks out into the darkness, as though Dick might be there, casually walking amongst the rooftops. He starts making his way to the edge. He needs to go higher. Gotham is only that windy on the higher buildings.
“God,” Dick says, in a tone that makes Jason stop. He sounds… pained. It’s a sound he only makes when he’s really sad. “I miss you so much, kid. I miss you so fucking much.”
“I saw you two days ago,” Jason says automatically. He feels chilly. “At dinner, remember?”
Jason can hear his own voice. He sounds like he isn’t sure. He sounds like he doesn't remember either.
“No,” Dick says, “that wasn’t you. I didn’t see you. I hate all the other guys, but you’re nice. Most of the time. Not like fake you. Fake you is such a bitch.”
The sentence shocks a laugh out of Jason, and suddenly, Dick is giggling too. There is a long pause, and Jason is suddenly afraid that Dick is too high up.
“Where are you?”
“When are you coming home?” Dick asks. “Are you able to?”
Jason doesn’t know what to say.
“Is—is someone stopping you? Is it—” Dick’s voice grows hushed “—it’s not her, is it?”
“Dick,” Jason says, putting more urgency in his voice, hoping that will somehow reach across to Dick’s delusion addled mind, wherever the hell he is. “Where. Are. You.”
“I’m trying to find you,” Dick finally responds, and Jason pushes his face into his hands, stifling a cry. He just wants to go home. He just wants to sleep.
“No, where are you, physically?”
“I don’t want to say outloud,” Dick says. “If she’s listening. I think she knows about the Shadow Box. She’s not a good friend, Jason. She’ll push you down and rape you.”
Jason’s eyebrows jump up. What the fuck?
“I miss you,” Dick says again. “Why don’t you ever call me?”
Why didn’t Jason just call him? Probably because he didn’t think Dick would answer. He’s getting better these days, but Dick used to be terrible at answering phone calls.
“I’m calling you right now, aren’t I?” Jason says. He feels something cold against his neck and looks up. Above him, the sky is thick and dark. It’s starting to rain.
“I… miss you too,” Jason says, figuring he should try something different.
“You do?”
“Yeah, I do.” Rain comes down faster. Little dark spots appear on the concrete. “You know what? How about we meet up somewhere. And—and I’ll give you a hug?”
It’s quiet for a moment.
“Is anyone following you?”
“No,” Jason says quickly. “No one. Just me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Don’t you trust me?”
A pause.
“Okay,” Dick says quietly.
“Okay,” Jason repeats. He realizes his heart is racing from adrenaline. He hasn’t even done anything. “How about the manor?”
“No!” Dick shouts, and Jason startles. “Not there. Everyone knows about the manor.”
“Then… that diner on seventh?”
“The one I used to take you to for milkshakes?” Dick asks. Nothing Dick has said so far makes sense, and the entry of a real, accurate fact startles Jason. Right. They used to get milkshakes there. Or, rather, Dick would drive him there, and he’d pay for whatever Jason wanted while Dick himself devoured a plate of fries. Sometimes Dick would even take him bowling after.
“Yeah,” Jason says faintly. “That one.”
“Okay.” He sounds almost happy. Jason feels horrible. “You promise you’ll come?”
“Promise,” Jason says. Dick makes him promise one more time. They say goodbye.
Jason stares down at his phone, the screen wet from rain water. He’ll have to wash his clothes again, he thinks. Later. Tomorrow. He’ll do that tomorrow.
For now, he texts Tim.
He’ll be at the diner on 7th, Jason sends. Then he tucks his phone into his pocket and heads home.
In the morning, Jason lies in bed and stares up at the ceiling. Usually he’s up early enough to hear his next door neighbor, a nurse, shuffling about, but today he’s woken up far past his alarm, and the apartment complex is quiet. Everyone is already at work.
Jason’s phone lies beside him. His screen is filled with messages.
Thanks, from Tim. Then, just a heads up, he’s kind of pissed.
Jason can tell, because the next several messages are all from Dick.
You lied to me
Why weren’t you there
I’m sorry you aren’t a liar
R u ok?
Did the imposter find you?
Can you please just text me
The messages went on and on. Several of them, Jason notes with a sinking feeling in his gut, just straight up make no sense at all.
I’m sorry i forget you don’t have real eyes, one reads. But you don’t need them to see the Shadow Box. You just have to feel it.
Jason pockets his phone. Distance, he thinks. He just needs distance. Yes, something fucked up is happening with Dick right now, and yes, Dick is technically his brother, but Jason needs distance, or else he’s going to lose his mind.
He gets out of bed. He sees the wet clothes. He throws them into the laundry, closes the laundry closet doors, then makes a breakfast of omelet and berries. He eats at his breakfast table, like a normal person. When he is finished, he washes his dishes, vacuums the living space, and puts the freshly washed clothes into the dryer. He sits on his pristine off-white couch with the jade throw blanket over one arm. He ignores his phone.
At twelve, he cracks and calls Roy. Roy’s not in town, but he tells him he’ll get a ride over, whatever that means. Thirty minutes later, there Roy is, standing at his front door.
“I don’t know why I called you,” Jason says. “I actually have to go to work soon.”
“That’s okay,” Roy says. “I’ll walk you.”
Roy does walk with him. He also doesn’t say much, which Jason appreciates. He doesn’t like rambling, like Dick. He doesn’t like plugging in headphones with traffic all around him, like Cass is comfortable doing. He also doesn’t like to be alone, like Damian probably would. So Roy just walks alongside him, occasionally cursing Jason and his long legs. Jason thinks to himself that he can’t remember his parents ever having friends. They had each other, sure, and they had coworkers, or drug dealers, or landlords, but they never had friends. Catherine would probably say her dealer was her friend, but Jason had decided from a young age that a friend is someone who would hang out with you even if they have no reason to. Catherine’s dealer was not her friend.
They’re a few blocks out from the library when Roy broaches the subject.
“You can talk to me about it if you want to,” Roy says, casual. “I mean, obviously I’m not part of your weird coven, but he was one of my best friends for a long time, and nothing you say will shock me.”
Jason stares down at the concrete, which has long dried from the summer heat.
“I hate him so much,” Jason says with sudden clarity. “I hate that he called me. I hate everything he said.”
“That’s okay,” Roy says.
“I wish he wasn’t in my life right now.”
“That’s okay.”
Life goes on. He goes on patrol and goes to work and even gets takeout with Tim. He bumps into Cass on patrol one night and they have an argument that ends with Cass storming off, probably to find Stephanie. Duke still hasn’t gotten his license, so Jason drives him to the movie theater for what Duke vehemently denies is a date, even though he wears his favorite jacket. He doesn’t hear from Damian, but that could be a case of no news being good news.
“Have you ever thought about working with kids?” Emma. The older woman who works the front desk on weekdays. Jason’s shelving all the new hold books for the day. The sunset is falling through the glass and onto the library’s carpet floor. Jason’s shift is almost over.
“Not particularly,” Jason says. “Why?”
“You seem to care about them a great deal,” Emma says.
“I do?” Jason asks.
“Yes,” Emma says simply. “You know what to say to them.”
Jason has never thought himself particularly good with kids. Steph is good with kids. She’s bright and confident and usually the first or second person they call in to talk to the more traumatized children. Dick is good too. Probably from a childhood of show business and a lifetime of playing big brother.
“I just… try to help them feel safe,” Jason says clumsily. “I… I never really did. As a kid.”
Emma set a comforting hand on his elbow. She smiles at him. Jason goes home that night, lies on the couch, and thinks about the time a man had threatened Catherine with a knife. Jason had been hiding in the closet. He’d been too scared to do anything. Eventually, the guy left, and his father came home, and they argued and his father threw a glass at Catherine, just barely missing her face. They did not clean up the glass for ages.
It’s not the most important memory, but he remembers it. And for whatever reason, he feels both happy and sad about the fact. Here he is, in his own apartment, which is so clean and so cozy—also, he remembers.
That’s okay, he thinks to himself. This evening, he has time. So he lets himself cry a little bit, then makes dinner and prepares for patrol.
Dick calls him. Jason ignores it. Dick leaves a voicemail. Jason ignores it. He reads to kids at the library and goes home and works on a new case. He goes on patrol, wakes up the next morning, and does the same thing again, except Bruce calls him before he can set out for patrol. Apparently, Dick’s tried to kill himself.
“You’re here,” Bruce says, sounding almost surprised when Jason shows up at the hospital. Jason feels a sharp flare of anger. It’s hard to tamp down.
“Not surprised you think so low of me,” Jason says.
“Just be kind for once, Jason,” Bruce says.
“Shut up,” Cass says.
It’s Cass who catches him up. Apparently the new medication wasn’t doing shit for Dick. Then, strapped for a gun, pills, or even a sharp object, Dick took the strings from a hoodie Tim accidentally left on the couch and tried to hang himself from the ceiling light in his room. Bruce had somehow found him limp, but alive. How alive is now the question.
“Did he say anything to you?” Bruce asks quietly, the two of them in the hallway next to the vending machines. Tim wanted a water, but Damian was leaned against him, asleep, and he couldn’t get up. Jason suddenly thinks of the call, the voicemail.
“No,” Jason says. “You?”
“No,” Bruce says.
Later, in the hospital bathroom, Jason opens his phone. He hesitates over the green phone call button, then presses down. He goes to voicemail. Dick’s voicemail is several minutes long.
“. . . I know you’re angry at me but I really want to see you and I miss you. We can meet anywhere. I’ll buy you anything. Maybe this time you can bring your face? But the good one, not the bloody one. But I’m okay if you bring the bloody one. It’s okay. You don’t have to bring a face. But I wish you could come. I miss you…”
It keeps going.
“Where did your face go? Did he take it? I wish you had your face. Then you could see the Shadow Box. But that’s okay. I can teach you how to look for it, even if you don’t have a face. It’s not fair, because she has a face. I think that’s how she knows about the Shadow Box…”
Tim walks into the bathroom. His eye bags look darker than usual.
“You look like shit,” Jason says.
“Bold words from someone who’s chopped on the regular.”
Tim leans over the sink, splashing cold water onto his face. Jason remembers he’s nineteen. A child, really.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Jason asks suddenly. Tim gives him a look like he’s cracked. He probably has.
“Um. I am a grown up.”
“But not really,” Jason says. “Your age still has the word teen in it.”
“I’m legally an adult,” Tim says, wiping his face with a paper towel. He procures eye drops out of his pocket, because of course Tim has eye drops in his pocket. “If I get on the news, they’ll call me local Gotham man.”
“Fine,” Jason says, “but that still doesn't answer my question.”
Tim tilts his head to the ceiling. Jason watches as he blinks away the excess drops. With how tired the rest of his face looks, the drops look like tears. Now that Jason thinks about it, why aren’t they crying? This is probably a good time to cry. Your technical brother figure tries to kill himself? With the strings from your hoodie? They should be crying.
Maybe, Jason thinks, this is shock.
Tim does his other eye.
“You know B is lying,” Tim says.
“Of course he is,” Jason says.
“I’m serious,” Tim says. He blinks again. “Dick was all over the place last night. Cass took Duke and Damian out, so they don’t know. But Dick kept walking around in circles and yelling at Bruce that—that the fucking shadow box raped him in the shower. Which—what the fuck?” Tim laughs. It’s probably an inappropriate time to laugh. “Bruce tried to talk him down from it, but he started crying and was all over the place.”
His voice sounds… wet. And—oh. Jason was wrong. Tim is crying. Just not the way people cry in movies. Instead, he just looks like he’s still blinking away eye drops.
“Do you think Dick got assaulted before?” Tim says suddenly. The sentence sounds polite and rehearsed. Tim’s not looking at him. Jason thinks about lying, then thinks about the fact that they might never be in the right place to ever have this conversation again.
“Yeah,” Jason admits.
“Do you, like… know?”
This is a weird conversation. Rape isn’t sex, rape is about power, but what is that one quote? Everything is about sex except sex. Sex is about…
“Not for sure,” Jason says. Jason thinks the reason why this conversation is so weird is because they’ve all kind of silently agreed to not talk about it. Dick’s never even remotely hinted at being assaulted when he’s in his right mind, but it’s the things he says when he’s out of his mind. The things Jason overhears from their peers. The one time he came across a Nightwing post on Tik Tok, only to find the comments section filled with the grape emoji. That time with the new strain of fear toxin, and Dick just kind of laid there, trembling.
“I don’t think he wants to talk about it,” Jason says. He backtracks. “We shouldn’t assume.”
“I know,” Tim agrees. Then he bends over, face tucked into hands, elbows digging into his hips, and makes a muffled noise that sounds at once scary, tired, and comical. It’s like he doesn’t know how to feel.
“He’s fine,” Bruce says.
“Like… completely?” Tim asks.
“Brain function is intact,” Bruce says.
“So he’s not a vegetable,” Jason translates. Bruce sighs, eyes closing against the morning light. They all eventually moved from the hospital to the manor, save for Bruce, who stayed overnight. Stephanie’s here too, clinging to Cass and holding her hand. Jason raises a suspicious eyebrow, but says nothing.
“So when is he coming home?”
“Four days,” Bruce says. “They want to hold him.”
Jason doesn’t know why, but he feels more relieved than he has in days. He doesn't want to see Dick. Doesn’t want to see him for a long, long time. He wishes, almost, that he never met him.
“He’s still in psychosis,” Bruce says, sounding hesitant to break the bad news. “His psychiatrist is coming later this morning. I’m going to go talk to her… Dick says he is open to visitors.”
That is surprising, considering Jason is pretty sure Dick thinks they’re all the devil incarnate at this point.
“I go first,” Damian states. Bruce looks at him warily.
“There is no rush. He’s not going anywhere.”
“Maybe,” Jason finds himself saying, “we should go to the zoo.”
He feels six pairs of eyes stare at him.
“Okay,” he says. “Fuck you guys too.”
“No, just—why the zoo?” Stephanie asks.
“Because… it’s free?” Jason says. “The aquarium isn’t free.”
Astounding logic, if Jason says so himself.
“I still want to see Richard,” Damian decides. Jason briefly wonders what this all feels like to a twelve year old. Is this going to be Damian’s equivalent of seeing his stepmom overdose but not quite? Will he remember this scene years later, the lot of them scattered around the kitchen they were having such a good time in just a few weeks ago? Or does this not even crack the top ten of Damian’s most messed up memories?
“How about we go to the zoo first?” Stephanie says. “Then after we can go visit Dick?”
Damian looks reluctant.
“We can go to the zoo later. We can go with Richard.”
Jason feels a bit like crying. He imagines just walking out right now and not looking back. Never looking back. There’s nothing really tying him to these people. He’s financially independent. He has his own friends.
“You can bring him a stuffed animal,” Cass ploys. Damian looks at her.
“He’s an adult.”
“He likes presents.”
Everyone knows that is true. Damian looks down at his hands.
“Okay,” he says.
Years later, Jason will recognize the zoo for what it really is: a far fetched gamble of turning this day into something normal. As it is, the group of them wade through the cobblestone path like a pack of sleepwalking zombies, led by Duke and Damian, who are fighting over the map. Damian wants to see the elephants. Duke wants to see penguins first. Tim exercises free will by siding with Duke, and so they’re walking towards the penguins.
“What is the shadow box?” Damian suddenly asks, eyes staring up at them without a hint of reservation. He disrupts the conversation the rest of them had been having, which was about Cass’s upcoming auditions in the fall. She wants to become principal dancer, even if she has to kill someone for it.
“Ugh,” Tim groans, rubbing a hand over his face. “Can we not talk about this? I’m so fucking sick of hearing about the shadow box. God, it’s such a dumb name.”
“But what is it?” Damian still asks.
“It’s nothing,” Jason says. “He made it up.”
“But what is it?”
And isn’t that the million dollar question? Because through all the little rants Jason has heard from Dick throughout the years, he’s never fully grasped what his delusion is. Because just when Jason thinks the shadow box is an object, it turns out it is a demon. Just when Jason thinks it is a demon, it turns out it is is inanimate. Just when Jason finally thinks he understands the shadow box to be an inanimate, void of a demon, it turns out the shadow box can rape people.
“I don’t think even Dick knows what it is,” Duke postulates. Jason disagrees. He thinks Dick knows exactly what it is, although what it is sure as hell won’t make sense.
“Whatever it is, it’s not real,” Steph says. “So don’t worry your little head about it.”
“I’m not worried,” Damian says. “I just want to understand what he is seeing.”
They enter the little cold dome for the penguins. Emperor penguins sit on ledges of fake rocks, grooming themselves and slipping into the water and raising their heads to shriek toward the sky, which is painted a soft, sleepy blue with wisps of white clouds. The zoo keepers spot Damian, hands pressed against the tank glass, and offer him fish to feed the penguins. Steph snaps pictures to send to Bruce. In the gift shop, Damian picks out a little stuffed baby penguin. He sets it carefully on the table next to him as they sit to eat their funnel cakes and slushies.
“Are you coming later?” Cass asks him, picking at the funnel cake she’s been sharing with Stephanie. Jason realizes she’s talking about the hospital. Somehow, he’s forgotten about that.
“No,” he says.
“Why not?”
“I’m just going to upset him,” Jason says. He recalls the night on the back porch, Dick’s eyes wild with delusion. “He thinks I’m fake.”
“How?” Cass asks, narrowing her eyes. Jason shrugs.
“I don’t know. I think… I think he thinks I’m an imposter. But he keeps calling me. And when he calls me, he thinks I’m real?”
Jason tries not to think about Dick’s delusions too much. After all, they’re delusions. There’s no point reading into them.
“If it makes you feel better,” Steph says, leaning over Cass, “at least he isn’t trying to convince you the shadow box is real. You should see the texts he sent me.” She pulls them up, and Jason wants to tell her to stop. “Listen to this one: Hi, Stephanie! Long time no see. I just wanted to warn you about the Shadow Box—all caps, by the way—because it is coming to devour your soul. If you need any help, just lmk. I’ve been through this several times, and I know for a fact it is stronger than ever now. Don’t let it eat your face. Once you lose your eyes, it is harder to detect him.”
“Jesus,” Tim whistles. “Hold on, I got one too.”
Maybe they shouldn't be doing this, Jason thinks. This is probably disrespectful. But.
“Hi Tim, I know you are angry at me, but I just wanted to warn you that your soul is about to be eaten. You are less desirable, because you have lost your spleen—hey!” Everyone laughs. Jason too. “But it is hungrier than ever and will take you too. Don’t look in the dark—ominous,” Tim notes. “And don’t turn on the TV. It can see you. Make sure to wear your glasses.” Tim blinks at his phone, bewildered. “I don’t wear glasses.”
Cass pulls out her phone.
“My dear sister,” she reads, “you cannot keep dancing. Dancing will lure the attention of the Shadow Box. It—” Cass pauses. She glances briefly at Jason.
“What does it say?” Steph prods. Cass is still looking at him. Jason shrugs.
“It has already eaten Jason.” Eyes flicker towards him. “Now there’s an imposter walking around with his skin. It is easy to see, but no one believes me. Be careful with your face.”
The mood is more somber now. Then Steph lets out a little laugh.
“He’s going to be so embarrassed when this is all over.”
That brings out a chuckle from the rest of them. Behind them, birds take off from the flamingo pool, and Jason watches them disappear up into the sky. Damian meets his eyes from across the table.
“Did he send you anything, Todd?”
Of course Dick did. He sent Jason piles upon piles of messages, none of which Jason has really bothered to read. He put Dick’s messages on mute ever since that afternoon that Roy came by. He takes out his phone and pulls up his messages under the table, hoping for something funny.
Jason, you’re the only one I can trust with this because I know you’ve seen the Shadow Box
I am sorry what happened to your face. I am sorry about your eyes.
You need to be careful. The Shadow Box is still hungry.
He sent demons yesterday and they tried to take my face. No one believes me. No one will believe you.
You have to be careful. They are getting stronger.
Stop hanging out with Roy. He won’t believe you.
You should wear more clothes. That was the mistake I made last time.
Or maybe not. It’s inevitable.
I’m sorry again about your face. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.
Jason blinks down at his phone. He can’t read any of this outloud. He looks up and realizes Cass is sitting close enough to read over his shoulder. She looks at him with big, alarmed eyes.
“It’s just the same stuff,” Jason mutters, closing his phone. “Just more nonsense.”
Jason doesn’t go to the hospital, but he does go back to the manor, mostly out of spite. See? He thinks. Look at me, being present. Not like you. You were in outer space. I am here. I am better than you.
He doesn’t have a real bedroom in the manor. Neither does Dick. Only Cass, Duke, Tim and Damian have real rooms. Dick had his own room once, before moving all his most precious items to Bludhaven, and when Jason came into the picture, Bruce had inexplicably given Dick’s room to Jason, figuring, perhaps, that it was already furnished for a teenage boy. Bruce would have probably continued the pattern if Jason hadn’t died.
Dick and Jason rarely if ever stayed overnight at the manor at the same time, so occupying the same room wasn’t a problem. Jason walks in, planning to grab some clothes for a shower. Dick has stayed here recently, which is evident. There’s neon clothes on the corner chair, all of Jason’s books have been shoved into the corner, and the wardrobe is covered in all the fruit-smelling hair products Dick likes to use. An ancient deodorant stick, which they both insist belongs to the other, sits untouched on the counter, like it always does. Jason’s still waiting for the day that Dick caves and throws it away. Jason would never use such a horrendous scent of deodorant. Summertime Splash has Dick written all over it.
He turns on the light and his eyes go up. Dangling from the ceiling light is a set of hoodie strings.
“Fuck,” he says outloud. He thinks, suddenly, of the day he found his stepmom. He’d been preparing for that day for a long time. Somehow, he was still shocked when he found her dead on the couch, vomit soaking into the ugly floral fabric, her body surrounded by trash and filth. He’d been so angry, because how did he spend so much time preparing for the inevitable only for it to catch him off guard? What, then, was the point of all that time he spent worrying?
Breathe, he thinks. Fuck all that. Just breathe.
Jason breathes. He stands there for a long time. Then he retrieves his clothes, goes downstairs, and takes a shower in the guest room instead. He emerges, pink and warm, and finds Alfred in the kitchen. He sidles up next to Alfred at the counter. Alfred passes him a knife and a board of vegetables. Jason cuts while Alfred prepares a stock. The rope, Jason thinks, is still upstairs, and someone should probably do something about that, but upstairs feels years away. Right now, Jason is in a pristine, homely kitchen, with beautiful green cabinets and soft white countertops. The kitchen windows overlook the garden and the endless plot of land beyond. By next summer, everything will probably be back to normal. Maybe by winter, even.
Jason read somewhere once that traumatic memories are stored differently than regular memories. This past week has not even been that traumatic. He wasn’t even the one to find Dick. That memory is for Bruce to deal with. All Jason has to deal with are a couple of voicemails and texts. Even Dick will probably come out of this relatively unscathed, if a little embarrassed, since half his memories will be mumbo jumbo anyway. Fall will come, and winter will pass, and Spring will hopefully turnover quickly, and at some point during all that, their memories of this time will be dragged into that place that regular memories are stored, and that memory will age and yellow and blur, like a cataract.
This is far from the thing that will break him.
Dick comes home from the hospital all weird and sleepy. His arm keeps twitching. He curls up on the couch next to Jason, looking completely unbothered, despite the series of texts in Jason’s phone that would say otherwise, and watches the baseball game Jason has on through half lidded eyes. Bruce is rummaging around upstairs. Damian is at some kind of summer school art event, Duke is out in the world as Signal, and Tim and Cass are god knows where. Jason continues working on his case on his computer. When he dares to look up, he sees that Dick is looking at the TV funny. Jason considers shutting off the TV, but decides, no. Because he still wants to watch. Dick can deal with the sportscaster staring at him and telling him the devil is coming. Jason got here first.
The broadcaster starts talking about how shit the Knights are this year, and Dick’s eyes slowly track up toward the ceiling. He stares at the chandelier.
“You good, man?” Jason asks against his better judgement. Dick turns to him. There are ligature marks on his neck.
“I’m fine,” Dick says. His voice sounds like shit. He’s holding, in his hands, the little stuffed penguin Damian got him.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Dick does not eat dinner with them that night. There is no real dinner, in fact. Instead, Alfred just has some food set out on the counter, and one by one, they wander in when convenient, fixing themselves a plate to eat at the counter, or in the dining room. Cass and Tim head down to the cave. Duke goes to bed. Damian and Bruce are staying in tonight.
Jason watches as Dick daintily sips a smoothie at the table. He’s more docile than he has been, at least. Still paranoid as hell, sure, but no longer texting everyone in a frenzy, nor trying to hang himself from the ceiling.
Quietly, Jason packs his belongings and heads out into the night.
His apartment is as he left it, with the exception of some dust on the shelves. He wastes no time fitting himself into his gear, then heads out onto the roof. He has contacts to talk to tonight. He’s slacked off enough as it is.
It’s easy to forget about the past few days while he’s working. He meets up with his contacts, touches base with his crew. He checks in on the corner girls, feeds a street cat, helps a lost person find their way. It’s a quiet night. Eventually, Jason gets hungry, so he buys a burger and fries and eats on the ledge of a rooftop, watching the night lights refract off the perpetual dome of pollution that hangs over the Gotham sky. The weather tonight is perfect. Summery, soft and cool. Everything is fine. Great, even. In fact, now that Jason thinks about it, there was a time when little Jason wanted nothing more than this: to be unattached, eating junk food he bought with his own money while watching the Gotham skyline. He has no money troubles. No stepmom to worry about. No angry father waiting for him at home. What he does have is an apartment all to himself, with all the books he only ever dreamed of buying, and a fridge full of his favorite foods. Maybe the only thing missing is a cat or a dog, but that he can work on. Little Jason, he thinks, would be ecstatic to know where he is now. Little Jason would be relieved that all his worries do come to an end.
Jason ends patrol early and goes to bed. The next day, he wakes up to a text from Roy telling him he’s going to be in town next weekend. A pretty girl on Tinder texts him back. A kid at the library tells him he likes his jacket. He goes to the shelter on a whim and thinks about getting a cat.
Friday night, it rains, and Jason returns home from patrol and strips out of his clothes for a shower. He’s in sweats, drying off his hair with only the stovetop light on when he hears a rustle behind him.
It’s Dick, standing in his bedroom hallway in what appears to be socks, pajama pants, and an old t-shirt. His clothes and hair are dripping wet.
“Jesus fuck,” Jason says. He feels a surge of anger. “What the hell, man?”
Maybe, Jason thinks, Dick is finally out of psychosis, and he’s here to apologize. The fact that he hasn’t contacted Jason all week gives him hope. The fact that his clothes are wet and he must have walked here in socks says otherwise.
“Are you… normal?” Jason asks, and cringes a little. It’s not like he can just ask Dick if he’s off his rockers still, but his wording was not exactly elegant either.
“They don’t believe me,” Dick says.
“O-kay,” Jason says. “So still not normal.”
It’s not exactly that Jason is scared of Dick. The contrary, actually. It’s hard being scared of someone who you once saw put on eyeliner while listening to Paramore. But when Dick is quiet like this, Jason remembers the other side of him, the Nightwing side of him. Jason knows the rumors. Nightwing will kill you if he’s angry enough. He will just stand by and watch you die. That’s the most frightening thing about Nightwing: that his emotions are fickle, that his morals are only true when he’s in his right mind.
Jason’s pretty sure he’s not in his right mind.
“I’m calling B,” Jason states, going in search for his phone. He’s done enough as it is. Dick is B’s problem. “Just sit on the couch.”
But Dick doesn’t. He follows Jason into his bedroom, and Jason huffs, letting him, figuring the less he says, the sooner he can get Dick out of here.
In the bedroom, Dick closes the door. Jason stops.
“What are you doing?”
It’s quiet enough that Jason can hear Dick’s breathing. It’s soft, but hitched, like he’s gearing up for something. Jason finds his phone on the nightstand.
“Right. So I’m going to all B—”
“I know what you are,” Dick whispers. Jason suddenly remembers the scene from what feels like months ago. They’re in the dark now too, but alone. The only sound is the traffic, far away.
“I know,” Jason says in return. Deflect. Redirect. “You’ve already told me.”
“He said it’s inevitable,” Dick says. “Everyone wants me.” Jason unlocks his phone. “My clothes are wet.”
A lucid statement for once, Jason thinks, snorting. He dials B’s number, then tosses the phone on speaker onto the bed. He digs through his wardrobe for dry clothes that he won’t miss. He hears shuffling behind him. When he turns around, Dick is out of his shirt and stripping off his pants.
“Jesus christ, can’t you just wait a second?”
Bruce doesn’t answer.
“Hello. If you hear this message, that means I am—”
Dick starts taking off his underwear.
“Dude,” Jason says, snapping shut his eyes, but that is the wrong move, because the next moment, he feels skin, too much skin, wrapping around him, chapped lips pressing softly against his neck. Fear, cold and sharp, zings up his spine, and he flails out, slamming Dick into the dresser and knocking the over the toiletries he has on top. Dick groans, cradling his head. His fingers are shiny. Jason just stares. Because that couldn’t have just happened. This can’t just be psychosis. Something else is wrong. Or maybe Jason’s got it wrong. Was Dick actually about to—
Dick’s eyes keep darting to the corner of the room. Jason whips around, but there’s nothing there.
“He doesn’t want me,” Dick murmurs, unsurely. His eyes dart to the corner again. A conflicted look crosses Dick’s face. “But everyone wants me.”
He thinks for a second about killing Dick. He’s got a gun in his closet. He doesn’t need the gun, even. He’s grown up now. An adult. He’s not the little boy standing frozen while his stepmom gets beaten. He doesn’t just have to imagine taking a swing at his dad. Doesn’t have to imagine bashing his dad’s brains into the ground. He doesn’t have to lie in bed later fantasizing about what he could have done. Jason can solve his problems now. Sure, Dick can fight, but the fact of the matter is, Dick’s naked and out of his goddamn mind, and Jason’s got at least fifty pounds and several inches on him.
He’s still frozen.
His phone starts ringing.
“Who is that,” Dick asks.
“It’s Bruce,” Jason says numbly. There’s a picture of a potato in his lockscreen. He forgets when he did that.
“Don’t make me go back,” Dick says. His eyes dart to the corner of the room again. “He doesn’t believe anything I say.”
The phone stops ringing. It starts up again.
“Why won’t you fuck me.”
Jason blinks.
“Because I don’t want to.”
“You’re lying.”
“Can you—” Jason’s jaw trembles. “Can you just put some clothes on?”
“Why won’t you fuck me.”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“Everyone wants to.”
“Jesus Christ," Jason swears. “Not everyone, you fucking narcissist.”
“You do.” Dick glances to the corner of the room. “I know you do.”
“What are you looking at?” Jason wants to grab Dick’s shoulders and shake him. “What the fuck are you always looking at?”
“It’s my brother.”
“What?”
“He’s talking to me.” Dick’s face hardens. “You don’t believe me.”
“I’m your brother, you fucking moron,” Jason says, tugging at his hair. “There’s no one else here!”
He doesn’t know why he expects his words to suddenly work. They obviously won’t. Nothing will work, all because Dick woke up one day and decided he wasn’t schizophrenic anymore and tossed out his meds. And now the meds won’t work.
“You,” Dick says, “are not my brother.”
Dick’s eyes skitter back to the corner as if for confirmation, and Jason whips around too. For a second, he sees it. Him. A flicker of a fifteen year old boy, tall for his age, but too skinny, with a face that won’t come into focus and skin that looks shiny and lumpy and silicone. He has no eyes, but Jason can feel him staring.
“I’m sorry,” Dick is now muttering. His words sound compulsive. “I’m sorry.”
Jason can’t do this anymore. He takes his phone, storms out the bedroom, and slams shut the door behind him. He texts Bruce: he’s here. Then he stares out into the darkness of his living room. He still feels someone staring at him. He sees that strange, doll-like boy in his head, distorting. Waxy, clay-like. He sees fake, jam-red blood, the kind they used in old movies, sliding down that too-shiny skin. His hair, shiny and plastic and too perfect, like doll hair.
Jason buries his head into his hands, then he screams.
He doesn’t know how much time passes, but he does know he kicks over the bookshelf. He knows he threw something heavy at the TV. He smashed picture frames. Went into the kitchen to shatter the mugs. In the hallway, he stares at the still closed bedroom door and flings his heaviest glasses against the door. The glass shatters and scatters across the carpet.
When it’s over, the lights are on, and Bruce is standing in the doorway, watching him. Jason’s sweating. He’s breathing heavy. There’s blood on his knuckles and his hands are cut, and when he looks around, he sees the destruction he left in his wake: dents in the wall, a shattered TV, his precious books dinged and wrinkled and crushed beneath the heavy bookcase. The plants he kept on his windowsill are all overturned, the soil browning the carpet. None of the furniture are where they are supposed to be. He breathes, wiping his nose against this sleeve, and sees in the corner a school project he liked which he had transported from his old bedroom. It’s a little paper mache globe. Delicate, but carefully constructed. He’d worked hard on it.
It’s broken, now. Like everything else. His apartment looks like the apartment he grew up in.
“Jason,” Bruce says, and Jason realizes he’s crying. He sinks down into the couch. An expensive, off-white couch, because he could, because it was something he didn’t think he would ever have, which he now realizes he shouldn’t have, because there’s blood on it. He cries and Bruce sits down next to him. Jason smells familiar detergent and cologne, and suddenly Bruce has his arms around him, Jason’s temple pressed against his cheek.
“You will be okay.”
Jason doesn’t want to be okay later. He doesn’t want to be okay now. He wants to have been okay earlier, before he trashed his apartment, when his books were still unwrinkled and alphabetically shelved. Why didn’t he just stop, Jason wonders. Why didn’t he just stop and take a second to think about it? He could have avoided this. Couldn’t he?
“Come home,” Bruce says. “We’ll sort this out tomorrow.”
“Where is Dick?” Jason asks. He feels numb.
“He’s in your bedroom,” Bruce says. “I put some clothes on him. He should be calmer now.”
Jason nods, and Bruce helps him up. He follows Bruce down the steps of his apartment, thinking guiltily of his neighbors as he passes by their doors. Down on street level, Jason sees one of Bruce’s many cars parked beneath a street lamp. Bruce seats him inside before going back into the apartment. Jason’s eyes trace the numbers on the dash. He flexes his fingers, letting the lamp light flow over his knuckles.
The door opens again, and Jason smells the stupid fruit shampoo Dick uses. Dick puts on his seatbelt, eyes skittering around the car nervously. Bruce gets into the front seat.
“Everyone ready?” Bruce asks. Jason feels oversized.
“Yeah,” Dick says. Jason grunts in response. Bruce starts the car and pulls onto the street.
The streets are emptier this time of night. Jason watches the blocks he’s known all his life pass by. Gotham is all orange lamplight and grey stone. The tall apartment buildings flicker with squares of color. Jason sees people cooking. Watching TV. Smoking. Jason eyes Dick in the rearview mirror and sees that Bruce has unfortunately selected one of Jason’s favorite hoodies for Dick to wear. The strings have been tugged out. Fucking Bruce. What’s Dick going to do? Hang himself in the car? But at least the sweatpants Bruce chose are an old pair that Jason doesn’t care for. He’s going to have to make sure he gets that hoodie back. Sometimes, Jason wishes Dick was still bigger than him, so he couldn’t fit in Jason’s clothes.
Dick meets his eyes in the mirror.
“Can we turn on the radio?” Jason asks. They’re downtown now, still a while away from Bristol.
“Maybe later, Jason,” Bruce says. And, right. Psychosis. Jason feels like a fool for asking.
They pass by Wayne Towers. They pass the diner on seventh. Jason catches Dick’s gaze in the mirror again, but this time, he holds it. He hasn’t been making a lot of eye contact with Dick recently, partly because Dick’s eyes are darting all over the place these days, and partly because Jason doesn’t want to invite conversation. He wanted to ignore Dick until it was all over. But suddenly, he wants to know.
“What is the shadow box?”
Bruce glances sharply at him in the mirror.
“Jason,” he says warningly. Dick fails to pick up the social cues.
“You know about the Shadow Box?” he asks.
“You mentioned it.”
Dick turns to look at him directly, not through the mirror. Bruce keeps saying he’s sick, but he looks sick as well. There’s no color in his cheeks, and his face looks sharper. His hair, at least, is washed. Courtesy of Bruce or Alfred, probably, although Jason wouldn’t put it past Dick to fuss about his hair, even in the midst of one of his worst psychosis episodes in years. Without the fruit smelling hair, Dick would be unrecognizable.
“The Shadow Box is coming back,” Dick says.
“Yeah, but what is it?”
“It wants your face and your eyes.”
“Why?”
“It’s hungry. It needs to eat. Because we are bad people. We are guilty.”
“Maybe I’m a bad person,” Jason says, “but I didn't think you were.”
Dick looks hesitant. He worries his lips.
“I am,” he says quietly. “I’m a horrible person.” His eyes dart to the radio nervously. “And now it wants to punish me.”
“Jason,” Bruce says again.
“I know,” Jason mutters. But now that Dick’s started, he doesn’t stop.
“I can see it sometimes,” Dick says. “Not everyone can, but I can teach you how.”
Jason says nothing.
“It’s hard, though, because you have to look down, and you should never look down.”
Jason looks down at his feet.
“No, like when you’re jumping to another building,” Dick says. “Like, up high. You’re not supposed to look down when you jump, because then you’ll mess up your balance, but if you do look, you’ll see it. Sometimes, you can see it in your periphery.” Dick leans in, like he’s sharing a secret. “It follows me everywhere. I can see it between the sidewalks during the daytime. I know it’s trying to get me. It can fold, you know.”
All in all, the shadow box is not the worst delusion Jason has ever heard of. He used to know a guy who was convinced the president lived beneath his floorboards. He kept tearing them up until the landlord kicked him out. Then there are those guys who think they’re the chosen one, or God, or the antichrist. The shadow box, Jason supposes, resides somewhere between persecution and demons.
“I know you don’t believe me.”
“I’m listening to you.” Deflect. Redirect.
“B doesn’t let me go out anymore, but I still feel it under my bed,” Dick continues. “It comes out once my eyes are closed then it won’t let me move and it fucks me—”
“Dick,” Bruce says this time, sternly.
“—everyone wants to fuck me. I think Cat told them what happened. Now everyone knows I can’t move when they fuck me—”
Bruce turns on the radio. A burst of music comes through. Late night summer radio, the kind of shit Dick blasts when he’s driving on the freeway with his windows down. Dick stops to listen intently.
They make it to Bristol that way.
They do go back to his apartment. They do straighten out his books. Bruce pays to have his couch cleaned, even though it’s a ridiculous use of money, but Jason allows it. Soon after, Jason receives a ridiculously large deposit in his bank account with the added note of a plane emoji. He texts Roy and tells him they’re going on vacation. Roy tells him it better be somewhere warm. Jason laughs and books them flights to Iceland. It rains on and off the whole week they spend there, and Roy complains the entire time as they eat hot dogs in Reykjavík and listen to Icelandic radio over breakfast. It’s never night, on account of the midnight sun, and Jason thinks to himself that maybe Dick would like it here. One day bleeds into the next, and they spend their days hiking to waterfalls and going on unsuccessful fishing trips.
Today, they’re on some guy’s boat, whale watching. Jason thinks they might have been scammed. They paid way too much money, and there is no one else on board. The icy waters crash against the side of the boat, and Roy presses his forehead against the railing, looking green.
“Ugh. Didn’t think I’d ever be here.”
“On a whale watching boat? Or Iceland?”
“I don’t know,” Roy grunts. “Any of it. All of it.”
Jason isn’t seasick, but he isn’t seeing any whales either. He thinks that if Dick were here, they’d see whales. Dick has that kind of luck. Cass sometimes, too. She’s going to be pissed when she realizes he went to Iceland without her. She loves traveling, but Iceland is one of the few places she still hasn’t seen.
“What did you want to be when you grow up?” Roy asks all of a sudden, eyes still squeezed shut. Jason contemplates the validity in the weird mishmash of verb tense.
“I don’t know,” Jason says. “President, maybe?”
“President?” Roy makes a face.
“I was, like, eight. I thought if I made all the rules, things would be good.” Jason pauses. “You?”
“I wanted to be a forest ranger,” Roy says.
The captain of the boat comes by to make sure Roy isn’t dying. He gives Roy a few crackers and a tin of something salty smelling. Jason steals the crackers.
“Well, I wanted to be a forest ranger. Didn’t think I’d become one.”
Jason doesn’t have to ask. Roy already told him years ago how he knew, deep in his gut, before he ever injected anything into his bloodstream, that one day he’d become an addict. There were addicts in his family. Addicts all around him. Roy described it as watching a building come down on him. You know it’s falling, he said, and you know it’s going to crush you, but you still run because you don’t know what else to do. You’re a fucking animal. Of course you run. And of course, it crushes you in the end.
Jason thinks about his wrecked apartment. About slamming Dick into the dresser so hard he found blood on it later.
Was it a dresser? Or was it a door?
“I think I’m a bad person,” Jason says. Roy peeks up at him.
“Is this about Dick?”
Jason’s got a cracker in hand, crumbling bits of it into the water.
“He broke into my apartment and he wanted to have sex with me.”
“Jesus,” Roy says, alarm breaking through his nausea. “Did he—was he—”
“It didn’t get anywhere,” Jason says. “He wasn’t, like…” Jason doesn’t know what to say. “It was like he wanted me to do it to him, for whatever reason. He wasn’t, like, into it.”
Roy grimaces down at the water.
“You realize that’s supremely fucked up?”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Jason shrugs at that one.
“He could have gone to anyone else. But he went to my apartment.”
“Well, maybe he did go someplace else too,” Roy says. Jason hadn’t even thought of that. Now that he thinks about it, god knows where Dick has been. Everyone knows he’s slippery. “You probably don’t know this,” Roy continues, “but Dick… he has, like, problems. With sex.”
It’s weird, having your best friend be your semi-estranged brother’s ex best friend.
“Don’t tell him I told you that,” Roy quickly says. “He doesn’t talk about it.”
They end up not seeing a single whale, and the captain claps them on the back and gives them more crackers. They have dinner at a quiet place with no one else inside but the two of them, then that night, they return to their lodging, Roy dropping down into his bed and spending the next hour rolling back and forth, unable to sleep in the light. Jason studies the ceiling.
“God,” Roy groans. “Why Iceland?”
In two day’s time, they’re heading home, and Roy is going to pick up Lian, and Jason will return to his apartment to finally sink back into vigilante work. The last dredges of summer will wane away, and the crowds in front of the amusement park will dwindle, and the snow cone trucks will go into hiding. Jason will start taking blankets with him out to patrol to cover up the people who have nowhere else to sleep but the streets. With the cold will come the holidays, and with the holidays will come the spike of domestic violence, and Jason will smash through walls to break things up, becoming the impossible, disruptive, Kool-aid man of a force he’d always prayed for when Willis started hitting his stepmom. Dick will get better. Slowly, but he does. He probably won’t remember much, just muddied bits and pieces, but he’ll still come by Jason’s apartment to apologize in the form of pizza and soda in fancy glass bottles. Dick will want a hug, and Jason will allow it, thinking to himself all the while that Dick will probably die from this one day, and that Dick definitely already knows that. They won’t talk about the bedroom incident. Jason never gets his hoodie back. But they do go to the zoo, all of them together, and complain about how the animals are inside because it is winter. Then Jason will bring up the fact that he went to Iceland with Roy, and they paid too much money to see no whales.
So, why Iceland? Jason wonders to himself.
Because it’s not somewhere he’s supposed to be.